


kioku 記憶

by amaiyo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, M/M, Memory Alteration, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Shorts, Telepathic Bond, Telepathic connection by third party, injured keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 07:10:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19901815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaiyo/pseuds/amaiyo
Summary: 1. "He dreams of you, Paladin," it trills. "Do you wish to see?"





	kioku 記憶

**Author's Note:**

> a short piece for writing practice based on a weird conversation i had with a friend idk man i don't work here

The ethereal caretaker extended one amethyst, glowing appendage to caress Keith’s slack face. His eyes were flickering beneath their pallid lids as he slept, darting left and right as he watched something no one else was privy to. If not for the blood and fresh scars and busted armor, Shiro might have been able to convince himself that his friend was simply taking a midday rest rather than hooked up to an alien medpac machine on a foreign outlier planet in a nameless galaxy that lay an incomprehensible amount of AU’s from their home star to save his life.

The radiant creature turned to Shiro then, and speaking in the soft wash of comforting whispers, “He dreams of you, Paladin,” it trilled. Shiro felt his blood flutter through his veins, a fondness he couldn’t conceal to know that, even unconscious, Keith felt the tightly wound pull of their bond tying them to one another. Shiro's breath caught in his throat as the creature reached a second arm-like appendage towards Shiro’s own tense jaw. One of the many tendrils brushed his cheek, seeking and tentative. “Do you wish to see?”

He hesitated less than a moment before nodding. He wanted to see Keith. Wanted to hear his voice and know that he wasn’t hurting, that he wasn’t scared, that he could heal peacefully here, hidden away from the rest of the world with Shiro and the other Paladins far from Zarkon's eye in this little hidden base.

The fluttering spread of arms reached for him again, the creature’s natural glow enveloping his vision as the floor seemed to drop out from beneath him, disintegrating and rebuilding itself in that hazy way the human mind has, and he was suddenly kneeling in a room so painfully familiar it stole his breath to witness it beyond his own memories.

Shiro had always had a love-hate relationship with the Garrison dorms; cramped matchboxes with beds made for dolls and too many corners to injure yourself on at 0500 when stumbling awake into your uniform. Even the officers quarters were a bit of a disaster to live in. But it was so familiar, so many years burned into his bones that he would recognize the stone and metal sleek of it anywhere, in any galaxy.

The vision Keith had constructed here in the cage of his medically induced-coma was a memory of them, just Shiro and him; one memory out of a million, Shiro knew. Keith had spent a lot of time with Shiro in his quarters during their Garrison days. At first Keith only showed up for tutoring and homework help, shy and barbed, but somewhere between the paperwork and homework problems Keith had dropped his distrust like a worn jacket at the door and they had become friends, genuine friends, well on their way to becoming the people they were to be. They spent most afternoons during the week outside of Keith’s classes and Shiro’s meetings huddled on the floor surrounded by their dinner and tablets, and as the desert sun set they would migrate to that damnable twin bunk. Shuffle and stretch themselves out and complain every time they kneed each other. They'd whisper to each other like children at a sleepover, sharing secrets, admitting mistakes. Keith told Shiro about his father on that bunk, his hopes about finding his mother one day. Shiro had told Keith about his grandfather, about the home he missed, about his insecurities in his newly decorated position as an officer. An instructor. A leader. Shiro had cherished those memories more than any other.

Shiro couldn’t place the exact day, or even the month or year, but Keith was drawing on one of those evenings now – the two of them dressed down in sweats and worn socks and ratty t-shirts as they bumped elbows and hips, side-by-side as they always were; Shiro resting with his hands behind his head and Keith sprawled on his stomach, taking up most of the space somehow despite his slight stature. One of them would get elbowed and they would both laugh, Keith hiding his face in the pillow as Shiro feigned hurt - putting on a show just to hear Keith laugh till his stomach cramped. The room was warm and quiet and safe and Shiro’s heart nearly stopped to realize that these were the moments Keith was drawn to when he was painfully injured and fighting death, these mundane memories of Shiro by his side.

A part of Shiro wanted so desperately to go back, at least then in that moment. Looking at the version of them before their duties as Paladins and defenders and saviors. This Shiro wasn’t expected to be a hero, he was simply sharing an afternoon with his best friend – laughing together about something from drill as the sun set and the shadows deepened and everything was cast red and gold.

But then the Keith in the memory reached out, the delicate fingers resting ever so gently on this younger Shiro’s chest over where his heart lay hidden, and Shiro had doubts. Keith had always been so careful with his touches. It was a work in progress. He had tensed just so under Shiro’s hugs despite how often he insisted they were comforting, always keeping himself a little distant, prepared for some reaction or rebuttal. Always a little scared. Trauma took time, Shiro knew, and he never demanded more from Keith than the younger man was willing to share. That included his space and his touch. But this Keith touched this Shiro so easily, so purposefully - as if this moment had happened a million times, as if Keith knew it like the back of his hand. Shiro was sure he would remember such a thing, this confident Keith crowding Shiro onto the bunk, looking hungry and warm.

This Keith used his hand as leverage to shift into his Shiro’s space, drape himself long and languid to Shiro’s side with such ease and grace Shiro caught himself leaning forward as if drawn by this Keith’s gravity. Keith dropped down, his Shiro leaning up partway, the two meeting in the middle in a kiss – sweet, innocent, slow. A cherished moment that made Keith curl his fingers into his Shiro's shirt with some flood of emotion that Shiro couldn't identify. Shiro’s chest burned to watch it; it felt like watching a stranger take his best friend into their arms, stealing him away to somewhere Shiro can't reach.

This wasn’t a memory, he knew then. Keith was dreaming of him. Of them. Creating something different and new from something familiar. Something safe. Shiro had felt such guilt when he had first begun to notice how mesmerizing Keith’s laughter had been, how rare and enchanting, and how he had wanted to cradle those finely boned hands in his own every time Keith forgot to take his gloves to the gym and bruised the sharp slopes of his knuckles on a bag. Only months before Kerberos he had allowed himself, alone in his bunk hours after Keith had left, this very same guilty dream; of curling his hands in Keith’s tangled mane of hair as they settled into the bunk, of pulling Keith down to him and pressing his palms to the warm flat of Keith’s bare back to just _feel_.

How jarring now, lightyears from home and caught in the bloody crossfire of war, to learn that Keith entertained the same thoughts – to watch as this Shiro was able to cradle Keith to him and kiss his Keith deep enough to pull a desperate sound from his chest, high and needy and perfect. Shiro felt it from the oddly distant plane where he watched like a specter, this hum in his chest. A buzz, a desire he wouldn't name.

“ _Keith,_ ” this other Shiro sighed against his friends’ mouth, one hand squeezing the back of his neck and the other finding its way to the strip of skin just below his shirt, feeling his way across Keith's body as if worried that he would slip through his fingers like sand. This Shiro's palm dipped beneath the elastic of his Keith's waistband, the reverent curl of his fingers in flesh obvious even beneath the black sweatpants. He used the handful of Keith’s ass to drag him downwards, grinding their hips together through the thin fabric that separated them, the motion a full-body grind that lit Shiro's bones. Something about the languid curve of Keith's back, arched through the sensation, nearly brought Shiro to his knees to watch. Keith moaned, jaw dropping, when Shiro pulled him down a second time, a little slower and a little harder; a sugar-sweet “ _uhhn_ ” that was one part surprise and two parts delight – a sound that Shiro was not intimately familiar with but had shamelessly imagined and ran hot to hear.

Shiro wanted to pry this Keith - _his Keith_ \- from the hands of his past self, a desperate impostor that didn't deserve the generous curve of Keith's hips or the handsome lines of his slack jaw and kiss-swollen lips. He couldn't possibly appreciate the flush of warm blood under Keith's skin, the strong set of his shoulders as he bent forward to cover this Shiro entirely as he moved - not the way Shiro could. Not the way Shiro did. This halfhearted memory of Shiro couldn't possibly love and worship Keith the way Shiro still dreamed about, only one door down from him every night. Keith deserved absolute reverence and devotion, to have every inch of him kiss-warm and praised. Shiro wanted to take care of him, sate him, give him the stars and cradle him through it all. Drink him down and fuck him til he begged. Give him everything he wanted. He would give Keith anything he wanted, he knew.

This Shiro kissed him again, slower and dirtier as he pressed his thumb into the hollow of Keith's jaw to open him up, panting into one another’s mouths as Keith’s beautiful hands settled on Shiro’s shoulders – such small, delicate things in comparison to Shiro’s wide bulk – and used the grip to grind himself down on Shiro’s cock again and again, slow but hard as this Shiro's other hand held fast to Keith's ass to temper Keith's ever present need to rush headfirst into sensation. This Shiro’s brow furrowed and he bit at Keith’s lower lip and tugged, drawing more satisfied, filthy sounds from the smaller man in his lap. Shiro had always wondered how Keith would want it - if he would approach sex with the same intensity he did most else, the same single-mindedness that shot him to the top of his class in mere months. If he would be demanding or demure, if he would let Shiro guide him and open him with care or if he would fight for too much too fast, would want the control.

Keith pulled his mouth away, nuzzling at Shiro’s cheek with such affection and sweetness Shiro himself nearly wretched at it – at his own want of that loving touch, to gently caress his friend's face as he fell apart in his lap. Keith panted wetly at Shiro’s clenched jaw, sighed and keened, “ _Love you. Fuck, Shiro, love you,_ ” he looked like he might cry. Pressed his check to his Shiro's and writhed in his hold, and Shiro so deeply, so desperately _wanted_. His heart beat so hard he felt every pulse and throb and ache. A stimulus too much to bare with his breaking and despairing heart, reaching for the man who hadn't looked his way once.

“ _Baby,_ ” Shiro keened into that sweaty mess of black hair that Shiro wanted to card his hands through and fucking _pull_ till Keith whined for it. For him. Wanted to pull every sigh and sound imaginable from those swollen lips and taste them on his own tongue. Keith responded to the endearment with a quivering moan, fighting his Shiro's hold to press their clothed cocks together faster. This Shiro took pity, beginning to maneuver their sweatpants lower, trying to press them skin-to-skin even as Keith continued to rut and whine against him like a needy little thing. “ _Love you, baby,_ ” his Shiro gasped against his slack mouth. Shiro was sure his heart cracked, jagged like glass and stone.

There was a painful twinge, a sharp pull in all directions as if his own soul tried to leave him, and Shiro was suddenly looking into the many eyes of the kindly creature that had offered to heal the Paladins in the safety of their hidden refuge outside the systems' main planets. The walls were white again, the golden cast of the dorm room gone and replaced with rows of medicinal plants lining the shelves, the lights overhead a little too bright. They washed out Keith’s already pallid complexion where he lay on the cot, a bloody mess of damaged skin and armor and medpac connectors. A second creature had begun cleaning the blood from Keith’s face with gentle strokes, a third beginning to strip away the mangled mess of ruined armor.

“You seem distressed, Paladin. Can I assist in some way?” 


End file.
